She believed men were not to be relied upon... Catherine Hewitt's book is a dazzling biography with descriptive details that help the reader imagine...
Our Mistress of the Month is Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne (1848-1910), a woman of 19th century France who it could be said slept her way up - intelligently. A strength of author Catherine Hewitt's book is the way she clearly explains the reality of sex work as a common option for women alone in the world, especially a woman with a child ; i.e. her mother turned to sex work too. Within the culture, as is the case now, there were those who started at the bottom and worked their way up, though perhaps very few made it into Mistresshood (generally, dedicated to one man) and so Valtesse was exceptional, beginning with her bright blue eyed - red haired beauty, but also because she was an astute observer and made a point of learning how those who were successful did it. She knew she would have to rise quickly and cover her tracks.
Hewitt gives us a historical perspective of that time and place, citified Paris, France, when sex work was extremely common. The girl and her mother from Normandy blended into the impoverished culture of women alone with limited prospects of employment because they were women. She also ads to our understanding when we try to define Mistress versus Courtesan versus Sex Worker. We can talk forever about how much choice is involved in each and every circumstance. (Perhaps the only legal prostitution option currently in the United States is the legal brothels of Nevada and so there is the most choice?)
Make no mistake about it, Valtesse took a lot of abuse early on, participated in acts she would rather forget, but somehow endured it, and became calculating and cold hearted in her need to never experience that level of poverty again and to not let her feelings get in the way. As she rose she had more say about who she would or would not have sex with. Her mother also understood when her teenage daughter brought men home to have sex for money, though maintaining one's beauty, having fine jewelry and clothing to wear, being taken out and being seen in restaurants and theaters (from stage to audience), and setting aside money for one's future, were all part of an ambitious plan to never look back.
Evidence of her success includes being the subject of a painting by Edouard Manet and being the inspiration for the writer Emile Zola who wrote the novel Nana about her, which was considered scandalous. She was rumored to have seduced the future King Edward VII and Napoleon III. She eventually managed to pass herself off as a Comtesse - nobility. The secret that the title of this book eludes to is her background. Valtesse knew how to spin the P.R. and market herself, and remained somehow elusive and mysterious. It was up to the author to tell her tale authentically.
In 1864 the teenager found herself in love and pregnant. She would have two daughters, one born unwell who would not live into adulthood, and the other who she paid her mother to raise. That she was a mother was a closely held secret until, at a time when she was at the height of her popularity and beginning to be open with her opinions, counter criticisms, and to write her own story, she learned that her own mother, who had brought six children into the world without marriage, might be raising her daughter to begin the life of a prostitute. Like some other extremely wealthy courtesans, Valtesse did not want her daughter to follow her into the business. A dramatic court case kept the French public enthralled with daily coverage in the newspapers.
Valtesse went through a number of wealthy men who were so crazy about her that some of them were rumored to be ruined financially. She acquired more than jewels and fine dresses, but great wealth.
Her first man who is credited with raising her up out of the low level sex work was a married theatre owner named Offenbach, a man with five children and a devotion to his wife, who put her on stage. During this period it was Courtesan Cora Pearl (our Mistress of the Month in July 2012, called The English Rose of Paris) who she wanted to emulate. But when War broke out Valtesse was one of those who fled Paris in 1870 for Nice. By the time she returned to Paris she and Cora Pearl were side by side. Valtesse knew that being a courtesan offered her the ultimate independence a woman of her time and place could achieve but to persevere she needed to not ignore society, but become part of it.
Done with the theatre owner and any hopes of a vibrant career on the stage, her first truly incredibly wealthy man was a Polish Prince Lubormirsky.
Lubormirsky owned great estates in Poland, Austria, and France. He was so generous to her that some speculated she left him broke - or well at least ended his cash flow. They were public as a couple and in the newspapers. But, one thing we must admire about this woman is that she knew when she needed to move on, be it that a man was running out of money or that he no longer found her fascinating, and she did so to an American General who was living in France. She'd always had a thing for men in military uniforms. He spent very approximately (the conversion to American dollars goes from French money to British first) half a million dollars in six months. He put an apartment in her name. (I know some of you who are reading this can only wish for that!) But she thought, what just an apartment? By 1873 she had moved on to another Polish Prince. At the time the police estimated that Valtesse had acquired thus far in her career about 3 million English pounds. Now associating with nobility, this was when she changed her name to seem even more aristocratic. After the war people weren't checking other people's credentials quite so much. She said she was from an ancient noble family of Normandy. And about this time, she began to wear clothes that gave her a masculine effect to balls.
It was the Prince de Sagan who provided her money to have a country house. Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne, may have come from nothing and nowhere, but her house had only the finest in furniture and art. She became an art collector and had affairs with painters. She was a voracious reader and began to also associate with literary authors. The book "Nana" was based on her and everyone knew it, even though the author said otherwise, and became a best stller. She was angry with him and countered it with her own book about herself.
As for sex, stick with me this month, as I will reiterate what I learned from reading this book about this courtesans' attitude about sex - and men. Just in case you want to follow in her footsteps!
Missy
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Interested in Mistresses in France, Paris?
Use the search feature of this blog to bring up posts using those words, or consider reading July 2012 for Cora Pearl, of October 2014 for Anna La Chapelle Clark. You may also want to read about Isadora Duncan, the American dancer who settled in France in February 2016 archives, Mata Hari the spy in November 2013, or ballerina Celestine Emerot in September 2016.
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